Thoreau Society Walking Tour

Perhaps no other American writer is as closely associated with his hometown as Henry David Thoreau is with Concord, Massachusetts. Thoreau was born in Concord in 1817 and he lived here for 44 years, dying at his parent's house on Main Street in 1862. He spent his entire life in Concord, roaming the woods and meadows, swimming in the town's ponds and becoming well-acquainted with the flora and fauna throughout the region. No doubt he walked over every acre of his hometown.

To many people, Thoreau IS Concord. The town influenced his thinking and writing, while he, himself, has become somewhat of a tourist attraction in modern Concord. People come from all over the world to see the town where Thoreau lived. And many of the buildings and sites that he knew in the mid-19th Century are still around today.

Join Thoreau Society's in-house historian, Richard Smith, for a 90-minute tour of Concord Center as you visit some of the places that Thoreau knew so well. You'll see some of the places where he and his family lived; the site of the Concord jail where he spent the night in 1846; the Town Hall where he sometimes lectured and, finally, the Thoreau family plot on Sleepy Hollow Cemetery.